[classicman]

The public impression is that the debate over repatriating detainees has only just begun. In fact, the agreement with the Denmark was only one of many behind-the-scenes negotiations between U.S. officials and their foreign counterparts that have been going on since late 2002. That largely hidden chapter of diplomatic history—and the mixed results it yielded—illuminates the challenges Obama faces as he races to close Gitmo down. "Over five or six years, we had a multiple-ring circus of negotiations around the world that people really didn't know about," says John Bellinger, who helped spearhead those efforts, first at the National Security Council and later as legal adviser to then-secretary of state Condoleezza Rice. "I analogize it to the old duck metaphor: we were calm above the surface but furiously paddling our feet below the surface."

The paddling grew more furious with each passing year, as Guantánamo—and America's treatment of detainees in general—became an ever-expanding public-relations nightmare for the U.S. government. Concerns about what, precisely, would happen to the prisoners once they left Guantánamo gave way to a resolve to get them out, as quickly as they could. It was a mammoth diplomatic task: Prosper, the State Department's initial lead negotiator, spoke with diplomats from all of the 44 countries represented in Camp Delta save for Syria. The process, which under Bush resulted in the return of some 550 detainees, revealed the hard truth that the new administration now confronts: there is no good way out of Guantánamo.

I certainly never heard about any of this. It certainly makes one wonder why not.